Simulating the Evolution of Aging

Comments · 3.3K

• PR

  @PrimerBlobs · 1 year ago (edited) · pinned

  A few notes<br>........<br>First, Punnett Squares was not the best recommendation for a path to answering the pop quiz question. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium would have been a better recommendation for something to look up.<br><br>A square diagram involving alleles <b>is</b> very useful for the question, but the diagram isn&apos;t a typical Punnett Square, since it requires assigning uneven probabilities to alleles, as if the two alleles were randomly selected from the population rather than from two specific parents.<br>........<br>Second, a common question: Isn&apos;t aging good for the species, since older creatures get out of the way?<br><br>Yes, it could be. This pattern would increase genetic diversity by allowing more new mutations to exist in a gene pool. And that genetic diversity would make the population more likely to survive environmental changes.<br><br>But! Natural selection usually doesn&apos;t work at the group/species level. Even if aging is good for a population in the long run, the individuals with less aging would still have an advantage during stable periods and be favored by natural selection. It&apos;s the same in the videos about cooperation. Cooperating is good for the species, but defecting can still be favored by natural selection in some circumstances.<br><br>Group selection is only a thing for tightly knit groups that reproduce together. Multicellular organisms are the best example of this. Each cell could be viewed as an individual, and the body as a group. Cancer is when cells decide to stop cooperating with the body and instead work for their own individual reproduction, at the expense of the rest of the body. Since bodies reproduce as a group, bodies that have mechanisms to enforce cooperation among their cells do better under natural selection. Even so, individual cancer cells don&apos;t really care about this, so cancer is a never-ending battle between the selection happening at the body level and selection happening at the level of an individual cell. It would be the same with ageless individuals, except the blob population doesn&apos;t even reproduce as a whole, so group-level selection would be much weaker if it exists at all. (Also, I would argue that longer-lived individuals aren&apos;t necessarily destructive like cancer and could even benefit the population in social species, especially in humans.)

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• GA

  @gabridish · 1 year ago

  The section &quot;In which I beg for money&quot; was expertly written. I love you, please never stop.

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• HC

  @hcblue · 1 year ago

  &quot;The beard [...] doesn&apos;t have anything to do with their survival.&quot; oh, phew, as a beardless adult, I was worried for a sec there.

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• AU

  @audreypatton152 · 1 year ago

  Youtube needs more content like this! Math, science, and how things work. Your videos are amazing!

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• RO

  @RobertoDeMundo · 1 year ago

  Life cycle of primer<br>Upload a video &gt; everyone&apos;s really happy &gt; everyone forgets about you &gt; wait 6 months

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• OZ

  @ozargaman6148 · 1 year ago (edited)

  The whole &quot;videos don&apos;t come out very often&quot; thing made me realize I&apos;m subbed since the 3rd video. 6 YEARS AGO. Wow. Time flies.

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• AN

  @anatolyFct · 1 year ago

  Please keep making videos dude

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• DR

  @DrAndrewSteele · 1 year ago

  This is such a great summary of something so often misunderstood! Thanks for the shout-out and I’m proud to have played a small role in making it happen. :)

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• NO

  @NoombatIsMe · 1 year ago

  I&apos;d love to see the evolution of caring for children vs. abandoning them. Like how some animals have 1 or 2 children they care for for a long time vs. how some have like 10 they just leave and hope for the best

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• EL

  @ElleYellow · 1 year ago

  Here&apos;s hoping you merge all these mechanics into one ultimate evo/life sim some day

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• TH

  @TheaL8r_01 · 1 year ago

  I really appreciate your transparency with your choice to not use sponsors to support the channel monetarily! I think it is quite important that content creators promote themselves and fund themselves in the ways that they believe is right for their channel and community! Love your content, can’t wait for more great stuff!! :)

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• CH

  @Chargou · 1 year ago

  I really hope to get &quot;My eternal and undying love professed reverently to the stars each night&quot; ;) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_JbJTeLZJs&amp;t=185">3:05</a>

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